Randonauting.

TW: paranormal, psychosis, mental illness, spirits, death, real-life horror

Here’s something that I knew I would eventually talk about, just not so soon.

I am a hereditary empath. I’m also very in tune with the world of the paranormal. The latter is something I’ve been able to block out most of my adult life, until this past Thursday.

Growing up, I would lay awake at night, paralyzed by a feeling of dread. Sometimes I would see things. Very rarely, I would hear things. Mostly, it was a feeling. And when you’re already inclined to overwhelming emotions as an HSP, it can be hard to differentiate sometimes between what’s real and what’s not.

I’m going to tell you guys a story about what happened a few days ago because I’m still recovering from it. I’m going to change my friends’ names and some details, but what happened is still not sitting well with me.

The Randonauting

So Thursday, I met up with some friends to go randonauting for the first time.

I had heard about how controversial it was from my friends, since apparently it had been linked to a murder in the past. I did some digging on Reddit and took into account how “uncanny” the points of intent would be.

Intent is basically a word you’d think of, and then this app is supposed to find coordinates that will take you to what you’re looking for. For instance, if you think “blue,” it’s supposed to magically take you somewhere that corresponds to the color blue, whether it’s a blue house, a lake, or your local Lowe’s.

So my friend, Gal, set the intent as “creepy” and got the coordinates beforehand.

It took us to a square of woods and brush located in a residential/business area in town. You know how sometimes you go to the dentist and it’s right by a bunch of trees, and you think, yeah, that’s some nature?

That’s literally what this was.

Just unmarked, untouched nature.

We parked on one side by a business, and I complained when looking at the map that the point of intent was closer to the other side of the nature square, where I knew there was an abandoned parking lot. I insisted that we drive to the other side so we wouldn’t have to walk through as much natural terrain.

Gal agreed with me, just because it seemed more logical, so we moved on.

We drove the three minutes to the other side of the nature square and headed toward the brush.

I already hate this, I thought.

A great way to get ticks.

Guy, Gal’s boyfriend, led the way. We kept getting scratched up by briers and thickets as we tread through the overgrown weeds. Eventually, we came to a little dirty creek and had to figure out a way across.

Guy went first to scout out an easier path for me and Gal. He insisted that we could cross a narrow part that wasn’t too deep, and it was the only way without going back.

So across we went.

Uphill.

In mud.

We both got stuck.

I felt like an elephant in a tar pit as we finally stumbled to our freedom at the top of the hill. We were sweaty, muddy, cut up, and fighting off mosquitoes.

“Zika virus!” I exclaimed.

“West Nile!”

“Ticks!”

The uphill path eventually led to a clearing, which was weird just because…

Why?

Why was there a clearing here, with trails?

We kept following the coordinates back into the overgrowth of downed trees, bushes, and vines. We ducked, shimmied, and climbed our way until we finally fell upon the point of intent.

A log.

We were all less than impressed.

Then Guy noticed an abandoned box about twenty feet away.

I said, “Lol, fuck this. I’m going to stay here because this is spooky mud, and I’m exhausted.”

The mud around us reminded me of shallow ground. Not wet enough to get stuck in, but pitch black like tar.

It smelled like petrichor.

Guy carefully made his way over to the box as I stood behind with Gal and noticed weird markings on the tree in front of us. They looked too strange to not be man-made.

Guy remarked on what was in the box: an old flower pot, a milk jug, and a lot of fiberglass.

He joked that it was what you needed to bury a body.

He had brought along instant film because he figured “creepy” meant ghost hunting. He took a picture of the box, and then of the markings in the tree.

We were having a spooky gay time.

We all agreed that the spot of intent was pretty neat and continued on our path, trying to find our way back to the car. We all agreed that we didn’t want to trek through that muddy hellhole again, so we would follow the trails and hope they led to a way out of the tree line.

Less than a quarter of a mile down the trail, we came upon a really shitty-looking house.

It had a dilapidated bridge spread over the creek we must have crossed earlier. The house was falling apart and looked abandoned…

Other than a modern truck parked out front.

It also had a few construction vehicles parked in the yard.

Since we couldn’t investigate because, you know, trespassing, we continued a little farther down the trail.

I remarked, “Hey guys, look at this creepy tree house.”

There appeared to be an old hunting tree stand nestled nearby in the tree line. The door was hanging on by its hinges. It was white and red weathered wood. It looked like it hadn’t been used in ages.

I had an eerie feeling looking at it.

I kept walking a bit farther down the path just to see if there was anything else weird nearby. Guy and Gal called out for me to come back and not wander too far alone.

Coming back, Guy asked if the spot where he was standing was where I had felt that feeling of eeriness. That feeling of dread.

I said, “Yeah.”

He pointed down at a black feather and said, “Black feather, white base.”

Gal and I were just kind of like, What is that?

He said, “Burial ground.”

And then he said, “I’m going to investigate the tree stand.”

There was also a white butterfly following us around, and we were kind of like, What if it’s trying to tell us something?

Maybe silly.

Maybe not.

Guy pointed out a bucket underneath the stand, and we were like, “LOL, open it! So spooky.”

In reality, it was probably for pissing in while hunting.

He climbed up the unstable ladder and asked for his instant film. He took pictures of what was up there.

He said, “Wow, this is so weird.”

There were unused shotgun shells. A chair. A tripod. Turkey shot.

He later told us that the flooring up there was definitely unstable, which made Gal mad.

There was also a beer bottle that expired in 1996.

Clearly, this had not been used in quite some time.

I shifted, feeling…

Weird.

And then I blurted out:

“I feel like someone hung here.”

Then we found the rope.

There was no reason for there to be a rope where it was on this tree stand.

We all sort of freaked the fuck out and decided to leave.

Guy took a picture of the stand on the instant film, and it came out overdeveloped.

When we had left the site behind and were still trying to find our way out of the square, he took another picture from farther away.

It came out overdeveloped again.

The weird thing about randonauting is that all of the coordinates are supposed to be randomized. We tried finding a few other points that same day with different intents, and they were all duds.

We think the “creepy” intent was really supposed to be for the tree fort.

The other creepy thing about this location was that, on Google Maps, it didn’t exist.

And by that, I mean this house we had found was tucked behind a couple of businesses with no obvious way to get to it—as in, no driveway. No address when we searched the crossroads.

Just a weird-ass place in the middle of a nature square.

And it makes you think:

How much of the Earth is untouched?

Or, in reality, how much of “untouched” Earth is actually inhabited?

How many things are hidden in plain sight?

When we got to the edge of the tree line to leave, it was where we had originally started on the other side.

It made no sense, since when we had looked for a way to enter by the business, it had looked impossible.

So we exited and had to walk around the block to get back to the car.

The Cup

The rest of our night was more or less normal.

We ate dinner, joked around, listened to some music.

Around 10:30 PM is when it got #weird.

So, Guy smokes weed.

Which is fine.

People smoke weed to relax, sleep, eat better—IDFC. It’s for a lot of reasons.

He asked me if I wanted to see his haunted cup.

I said, yeah, sure.

It was late, we had had a spooky day, and he was mainly impressed at how intuitive I had been with the earlier situation. He wanted to see how I felt about something a little closer to home.

So I took his cup.

I was like…

Yeah.

It feels kind of hot?

Like, not warm from where he had been touching it. It’s made of metal, so it’s conductive to heat.

It felt sort of energetic.

And heavy.

He asked his girlfriend to touch it.

She said, “No, I fucking hate this cup.”

She then pointed out how this cup had always been a thing, even before they moved in together.

Eventually, she reluctantly handled it.

She remarked that it felt weird, but she was unsure because her “powers” weren’t as strong as mine.

Guy asked if we had tried to take anything from the cup.

He kept valuable things in the cup that apparently were offerings. He said he had good days when he put things in, but the one time he took something out, he had a tragic day.

I stuck my hand in the cup and could feel a bit of resistance, but I didn’t touch any of the offerings.

I jokingly asked if they had ever used a Ouija board to talk to whatever was attached to the cup.

Gal said that she had one, but it scared the shit out of her and she had never used it.

Full disclosure:

We didn’t wind up using it.

And I’m also a big ol’ dumbass for even suggesting it.

I said I’d look up the rules on this Tumblr blog I follow to make sure we were doing everything right.

At first, Guy was like, yeah, that’s all good.

He mentioned that maybe we should ask if the spirit was alright with spectators.

I said, sure, whatever, that’s fine.

This is when Guy’s demeanor entirely changed.

He shouted:

“No. She’s here.”

I watched Gal stiffen up.

I asked, “Who is she?”

Gal’s eyes were wide.

She told me that this woman didn’t have a name and not to talk about her.

This woman apparently only came to Guy when he was severely depressed or anxious.

I asked if they had ever tried communicating with her about what she wanted.

Guy said no.

She didn’t want that.

She didn’t know what she wanted.

Gal asked me if I could try to sense her—to see if she was real, considering how Guy would only see her when he was experiencing intense emotions.

This would be difficult, being an empath and spiritually intuitive. It would be hard to measure which part of what I was feeling was coming from me, from Guy, or from whatever else might have been happening.

So Guy offered me his hand.

He was crying.

“I’m sorry for doing this to you,” he said.

At this point, Gal and I were balls to the wall freaked the fuck out.

I hesitated because it just felt off.

Whether it was paranormal or not.

I finally grabbed onto his hand and just felt energy pour into me.

I staved off a panic attack and sat farther back into the couch.

Gal asked me, “Well, what did you feel?”

I tried to explain that I definitely felt…

Very negative energy.

Whether it was coming directly from him or not, it felt malicious.

Guy began explaining that there were others here.

A mining man.

A young boy.

A sknwlker—which he explicitly would not say earlier when we were in the woods.

He said, “They’re all lined up behind me. They’re screaming.”

Then, almost in an instant:

“They’re supportive. I’m so sorry if I scared you guys. It’s okay. They’re supportive.”

Gal and I looked at each other in wide-eyed disbelief.

I grabbed onto the planchette because I felt drawn to it.

It’s alleged that if you look through the glass of a planchette, you can see spirits.

This sent Guy into another spiral.

He collapsed into himself.

Tense, he remarked, “No. I won’t do that.”

Gal asked him, “Do what?”

He looked manic and said:

“I can’t tell you.”

He was rocking back and forth, looking panicked.

Gal tried to intercept by touching him, trying to bring him back to us.

My mind was spinning.

The energy of the room was so dark.

Guy finally broke from his tension and said:

“Let me play you guys some happy music.”

The music was not happy.

It was on par with any fucking horror movie trailer music you’ve ever heard.

I let Gal know that I had to go to the bathroom.

We headed upstairs and exchanged a few:

What the fucks.

All the while, it occurred to me that Guy might be experiencing psychosis.

Maybe It Wasn't a Ghost

Whether it was because of the happenings of earlier that day—the spooky setting, the disturbing tree stand, smoking weed while already struggling psychologically, or some combination of everything—it didn’t matter.

What I was witnessing looked, to me, like auditory and visual hallucinations, frantic speech, repetitive movements, abrupt shifts in mood, and other erratic behavior.

I call it the zoomies.

I told Gal my thoughts and didn’t feel safe leaving her there that night for me to go back to my house.

She felt conflicted because she didn’t want Guy to wind up hurting himself either, especially since he was in such a heightened state.

She said that she felt like, whether he knew it or not, he was hitting all of her triggers.

He was broaching anything and everything that terrified her.

All of this took place over the course of about five hours.

We left briefly to get food, per his request.

We took this as an opportunity to discuss everything further.

She told me that she had never seen him act this way, and she was terrified.

Not only because of the fear of harm, but also because of the fear of the unknown.

Is it paranormal?

Is it mental illness?

Does he know that he’s doing this, or will he forget in the morning?

Is he in control?

He had told us earlier that he felt like he wasn’t.

Before heading back in to reveal a slightly more mellowed-out Guy, I invoked our ancestors and guardian angels to protect us through whatever else was yet to come that night.

I finally convinced her to go home with me, and I would take her back in the morning.

We carefully left after persuading Guy to go to bed.

I guess he was up much later than he usually was after getting high, which was part of why it was so unusual.

On the drive home, we had to take the rural route since the highway was closed, and the shadows were not kind to us.

It was particularly dark that night, and I felt an aura of eeriness the entire thirty-minute drive.

I had my husband talk to her.

Shout-out to H for not divorcing me over suggesting Ouija board use. You’re the real MVP. Insert sweat-drop emoji.

He suggested that just because she had never seen Guy act that way didn’t mean he had never been that way.

He also suggested that maybe if you have a lot going on in your brain, you shouldn’t partake in recreational drug use until you get your shit sorted out.

He told her that regardless of whether Guy knew what he had done that night, an apology was owed for being spooky AF.

After we had all gone to bed, H was very clearly upset about all the stupid shit I had done that day.

He discerned:

“Why do all these strange occurrences always happen to you?”

“Why do you fuck around with this stuff?”

He fidgeted the rest of the night and admitted to being scared.

Since this whole event, I’ve felt extra spooky.

I haven’t felt this vulnerable to the unknown since I was younger, and it’s a defeating, helpless feeling.

The Morning After

The next day was the moment of truth.

On the drive back to Gal’s house, we went over all the potential scenarios.

Either Guy would remember, or he wouldn’t.

Turns out, he did remember.

And he chalked it up to being a bad episode.

More or less what I figured.

But still frustrating.

Because it was just as real for us as it was for him.

I don't know exactly what happened that night.

And honestly, I don't think I ever will.

Maybe there was something paranormal happening.

Maybe there wasn't.

Maybe the woods, the tree stand, the rope, the cup, the suggestion of spirits, the weed, exhaustion, fear, and Guy's own psychological state all fed into one giant feedback loop.

Maybe some of what I experienced was intuition.

Maybe some of it was anxiety.

Maybe some of it was coincidence.

Maybe it was something I don't have a word for.

That's the part that bothers me.

Because when you experience something frightening, you want an explanation.

You want to be able to put it in a box.

Ghost.

Psychosis.

Coincidence.

Bad vibes.

Something else.

But sometimes you don't get to know.

What I do know is that Guy was experiencing something that night, whether or not the explanation was paranormal. What he was experiencing was real to him, and the fear it caused the people around him was real, too.

Psychosis is not something you can simply fix on your own. You need professional help. You aren't alone in it, and there is help available.

Despite the frustration of the entire event, I wouldn't have changed the decisions I made.

I did what I felt was correct in every moment, even if sometimes stupid.

(The stupid choices didn't work out! Insert relief-face emoji.)

I waited outside her house until she gave me a sign that all was well, and I drove back home exhausted.

And now, for the completely scientifically verified fact that I definitely did not find on some questionable corner of the internet:

Apparently, there are 2.5 ghosts or spirits for every living person on Earth.

So that means a traditional nuclear household of four has approximately ten ghosts living with them.

You're welcome.

I asked for permission before typing this all out because of the subject matter being deeply personal.

It was scary.

I’m still scared.

It’s hard to see a person you care about not be in control of what they say and do.

It’s scarier when it’s all real and fake at the same time.

It’s a very difficult subject matter, and nothing you can say about it feels entirely right.

Thanks for coming to my story time about mental illness, the paranormal, and the act of randonauting.

Let’s talk about it.